(cheerful Christmas music)
(upbeat Christmas music)
- Hi, this video starts in a car on the way to Portsmouth.
'Cause I wanted to show you a little bit about what I do
kind of off the internet, most of the time.
Which is I go and I give talks to people
about how to use the internet.
Is what we're doing today.
We're gonna go and talk at the special lovely Google place
that is called
- The Digital Garage in Portsmouth.
- The Google Digital Garage and we're helping people
who are freelancers or have small companies work out
how best to use YouTube and Google
to help their business grow.
And I'm also tired, already. But it's gonna be good.
I feel peppy. Clara also feels peppy.
- Oh sorry I didn't, yeah I'm excited I like these things.
We usually meet really nice people who are just really happy
to learn so, yeah.
- She doesn't love driving though.
- I don't mind it now, just wait for the traffic
and then I will hate it, it's coming.
(bouncy Christmas music)
- YouTube creator, Jess to our space.
Would you please come and join us.
(audience applauds)
- That's not me.
- No that's not you.
(audience laugh)
(bouncy Christmas music)
- And that's why I still make videos, because
I want the little teenage me who didn't have
anyone to look up to, who didn't have a role model
that she could see who was disabled or had a chronic illness
or even just you know, a fem lesbian.
I want her to be able to have someone
that she can look up to.
And know that she can get there too.
So that's why I make videos.
(crowd members exclaim)
- Wow. Thank you.
(audience applaud)
(bouncy Christmas music)
- So, let's get some light in the situation.
Oh, look you can see Clara's highlight.
(laughs)
Wow you fancy.
(laughter)
So it's the end of our working day.
We are done. I am done. I have a headache.
But I was gonna go home and edit the video
that's supposed to be going out today but
I don't think that's gonna happen.
Because, it requires a lot more work
than I feel I'm able to do. I think my head hurts.
So I'm gonna go do a Q & A
with my wife.
And then that'll be today's video.
So, welcome to a different video. Hi.
This is now today's video, it's a Q & A. Enjoy.
Thank you for watching.
And bearing with me.
Hello lovely people.
So, this isn't actually the video I had planned
for the day. But things just got away with me, you know?
It just got a bit too much and I was like
oh, I'm not going to be able to edit this one on time.
Okay and then Claudia came home and I was like
come and do a Q & A with me.
So that's what we're doing right now instead.
We're gonna answer some of your festive and not so
festive questions that I asked you
on our Instagram @jessieandclaud
which you can go and find in the description a link to that
go and follow us, we're cute and currently festive.
And considering my pent up feelings of the day
it's rather appropriate, basically I push myself too hard.
Let's be honest, I do.
I would like to be able to detach my sense of self worth
from my productivity levels, but that's a work in progress.
We'll get there eventually.
And also marvelously appropriate that today's advent
calendar gave the beautiful, give yourself a break
about that thing, that's been stressing you.
And that's what I'm doing right now with this video.
If by the way you get confused about how I am somehow
able to understand my wife despite the fact I'm deaf.
I actually have a video which explains that too and
you can watch that, that will be in a card above.
If I remember because let's be honest I'm exhausted
and I have brain fog.
But one thing I really like about Vlogmas is filming
everyday kind of gives you quite a fair
gives you an idea of what life is like living with a
chronic illness because throughout the rest of the year
only (stumbles over words)
I make videos and post them and only film or do livestreams.
When I'm feeling well, when I'm feeling good.
And my brain is making its connections so then it's quite
interesting when we do Vlogmas to be able to show you that
that's not everyday. That's not everyday.
I can't always think in a linear fashion.
And I can't always stay awake for a while.
We'll see, I've been pretty exhausted today.
But hopefully I'll make it through this video.
I mean, I really hopefully, I shouldn't crash out
because that's just rude.
Hello lovely people and welcome.
Why actually
- I'm wearing my Christmas jumper!
- Oh, yes.
I look apparently according to Stevie
like a Mrs Claus dominatrix.
- Yeah, this is, when this dress was hanging up
in the spare bedroom, Stevie was like I really liked
your black dominatrix dress, we were like.
She doesn't have a black dominatrix dress
What's she talking about?
- Okay, anyway go on to my Instagram today and you can see
the whole dress in full because I can't really show you
because we're really close right now.
But you can see the whole thing in full and then please
leave a comment underneath with whether or not you think
this is a dominatrix outfit and that's really gonna
confuse the people who did not watch this video.
That's fun.
- Yeah that's true.
(laughter)
But like it doesn't look like a dominatrix outfit at all.
- Right, it doesn't?
- People are like why are they even mentioning that?
Anyway.
- Anyway, so I had a different video that was supposed
to go out today, but I got a bit overwhelmed.
Got a bit much. Can't even speak now.
- I've got something to cheer you up.
- Okay! What is it? Don't actually even know
- Ta da!
- Oh!
- Sugar free, hazelnut syrup. Look, smell it.
It transports you to Christmas.
- Anyway, so instead I asked you guys on Instagram
for some good questions that we could answer
to do a little Q & A
So you can learn some fun things about us.
Some of these are festive, some of these aren't
because not everyone stuck to the rules.
- Okay.
- It just is how it is.
- Yeah, read me some.
- All right.
- Mistletoe at parties, for or against?
- For! But without the
- Tradition? Just decorative purposes only. No kissing.
She puts mistletoe up and signs with big like X's
- You don't have to act on this.
- There's the like photo of my face
with a green circle and a tick.
And then there's like any other face is like no!
- So I am for mistletoe without any expectations.
That's brackets, that has to come after the mistletoe.
I think mistletoe is fun, it's a really cute excuse
to kiss someone who wants to kiss you.
Consent people.
Can't just grab someone, like
- No.
- Oh I saw you under that mistletoe
three and a half hours ago, you're mine now.
Inappropriate.
- Interesting facts about mistletoe.
- Go for it.
- I mean, it's not really, well it is a fact
but I think people know it.
- Claudia's very into trees.
- I am I'm reading the The Hidden Life of Trees, it's great.
- And what did you learn the other day?
- Trees are not always that fascinating to us human
because of the fact that life to them is so much slower.
So like, they're on a different realm basically.
Trees live to a hundreds of thousands of years.
Apparently the oldest tree on earth
is about 9,000 years old.
- That's very exciting.
- It is, just think of all the things it's seen.
Trees can't survive without leaves for chlorophyll.
But they've worked out that like old stumps
where people have been logging, have still got life in them
and then they're like, how is this happening?
It's because the other trees around us still supplying
them nutrients through the root system.
And I'm like what is the purpose of this?
And it's because forests are a whole organism of trees.
And they are one living being together.
- They talk to each other.
- Yeah because they survive strongest in a group.
I'm so sorry I'm boring you.
Like, the second time you've yawned and you've told me to
tell this boring story about trees.
No one finds this interesting.
- I find you fascinating I just have chronic fatigue.
What are your favorite Christmas traditions?
- I like having a big Christmas dinner.
- Oh yeah you love anything involving food.
- I mean, I'm not a big fan of turkey but I do quite like
having a roast turkey on Christmas Day.
I think it feels traditional.
Oh my God.
You can have like a time out?
- I don't know that time out would make it better.
- Okay, we're just like let's do these fast.
- I really like St. Lucia.
- Yeah.
- The Swedish tradition where I wear a crown of candles
I say I, the youngest girl in the family.
It doesn't just have to be me.
But I don't have a younger girl so it's just me.
I will. Eventually.
I intend to set our child's head on fire quite early on.
November, December or January?
This is difficult because November, Autumnal.
December, Christmas.
January, my Birthday!
- December's my Birthday and Christmas.
And at least everyone's feeling jolly and there's like
nice lights around.
November is just like leading up to like, December
and it's a bit like
Ah, it's too far away to get excited
and it's just dark and cold.
And no one's put their decorations up yet.
And then January is just like
oh this is so depressing, so yeah.
- Thanks Walter.
- I think we should do Vegan January, whatever it's called.
- Veganuary.
- Oh my God, do you think so? Really?
- Yeah.
- Okay.
- If you think we should do Veganuary please comment
especially with things we should eat / that I can eat
because I can't eat beans and pulses.
- I've been cooking quite a few Vegan meals recently.
- We have, inspired by our friend Charlie who is a Vegan.
Red, green and gold or white and silver?
Easy choice, easy choice.
- Neither.
- What's your choice?
- Just red and gold.
- Oh yeah. No but the tree is green.
- Okay fair enough.
What are your favorite Christmas songs?
(sings) All I Want For Christmas Is You.
(chair squeaks)
Your chair it's like
- Oh.
- Oh you know what I like?
It's a bit like eerie but I like that song from Home Alone.
The (sings melody)
Okay (laughs)
I'm singing to a deaf girl.
It's the song, nothing to do with the fact
that I can't, do a tuneful note.
- No doubt.
- It's the bit when he's like in the Church.
- Yeah.
- I'm pretty sure, anyway. I'm on my own on this one.
- I'm sure other people will so love your doo doo song.
- Favorite Christmas movie?
- Oh, It's a Wonderful Life. So cheesy, I know.
Also just Love, Actually.
- Love, Actually yeah.
- Any advice for someone who's always
lonely for the holidays?
Find other lonely people.
Lots of people I think are quite lonely at Christmas.
And that's okay.
- Yeah.
- But also you don't have to be if you don't want to be
because there are other lonely people.
And you can join them in doing things together.
Like people set up group meals.
There are some restaurants where they'll do that.
They set up a group meal for people
who don't have anyone else to have Christmas meals with.
- Most pubs are open on Christmas Day.
Even if it's just for a few hours and that's quite nice
because people are always quite jolly in the pub
and you can go and have a drink or
doesn't have to be an alcoholic drink.
Just have like a good old chat with people.
- If you can you could volunteer in a homeless shelter.
- Yeah that's true.
Like Crisis. No not sorry.
- Shelter Shelter
Yeah.
- I think Crisis is a thing that also exists.
- Yeah okay.
- Not that we're telling you not to go there.
- We're not sponsored by either of them.
- We just have a friend who works for Shelter.
Does Christmas start on November the 1st
or December the 1st? Controversial.
- Is it?
- Well according to the adverts, it starts
on November the 1st.
- What advert?
- When the Christmas adverts start playing.
- Oh you mean to media? It's November the 1st?
- Oh, to media she says.
- But to like, the general public it's like
December the 1st.
- Okay.
- And even then that's wrong because actually
the first day of Christmas is Christmas Day.
- I know. As I proved in my Christmas Tide series last year.
Do you like fruit cake?
- No.
- Do you have any festive traditions?
Watching the Snowman. Next question.
- What is your time of year and why?
- Oh that tickled my ear.
Your domanatrix dress.
Sensory pleasures. No I don't like it.
Don't touch my hair.
- Jessica how did you get through GCSE dyslexia?
Jessica, how did you get through GCSE English with dyslexia?
Wow.
- With difficulty.
Basically didn't you have to speak and someone else
wrote for you?
- Yeah I dictated. My dyslexia means that I can read
incredibly well and I cannot get words from my head
to the piece of paper.
So I had a lovely lady who was the school receptionist
who sat there whilst I and write things down.
Wrote things down for me, I am tired.
How much is Claudia loving her new Sony A73?
- Yeah. I love it.
- Is that how you say it?
- Yeah.
- You're very happy aren't you? Very happy.
- We were debating on whether to use it
as the new studio cam to like film
- This one.
- The videos.
- That you're watching us on.
- But like, some friends of ours were like no
don't take that away from Claudia because like
it'll be set up on the rig all the time and then like
she won't be able to spontaneously go down and take photos
of the dogs and I was like, yeah.
- Tips for finding people to date when you have a disability
I can't find my person.
The trick is though, that when you find your person
they don't care. But.
- What? Oh they don't care.
They don't care about your disability.
- They don't care about you, how would they be your person
if they didn't care?
- Anyway I would say you should swipe the way
is it left? The way that choose more?
Basically, I'm saying you should say yes to more people
that show interest, because
you just don't know what you like
or what the right thing is.
- Oh it's like houses.
- Yeah.
- You have to go and see the house.
- Exactly. You shouldn't judge a book by its cover.
You can't like, judge a house by the photos on Rightmove.
You can't judge someone on a dating profile
or just having met them quickly in a shop
or wherever the hell you met them.
- That's a meet cute then.
- Yeah you need to go for a date.
- Okay.
- Even if it's just to explore more about what you like
and what don't like in a person.
I went on loads of dates, you went on loads of dates.
- I did go on loads of dates.
- So then our tick list of what we wanted get
shorter and shorter.
It didn't stop me going on more dates with people
I just kind of knew what my tick list was.
- I think also though, slowly slide people
in to the disability aspect of it.
So like, when we had our first date, I ordered a
virgin mojito so you wouldn't know for sure
that I didn't drink alcohol.
And as the night went on, I slowly like
drip fed you the stuff that was wrong with me.
- I think it was more
- Win them over with your
charming personality at the same time.
- I think with the virgin mojito thing it was more like
you didn't want, 'cause you knew I was gonna
come in and be like what are you drinking?
And you were like oh it's just a mojito.
And I was like oh cool.
'Cause then I felt liberated to then
go get myself an alcoholic drink.
- True.
- And you didn't wanna like make me feel like I couldn't.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause I should just do what I wanna do on a date.
The same way with your disability shouldn't hinder what
someone else would normally do.
- No.
- Like, they shouldn't behave differently around you.
So, fair enough on your first date you might kind of
mask it a bit more.
- I guess like when you're dating someone who's like
I love long walks in the countryside and you're like
that's cool, I can't walk.
But you can have great fun going by yourself.
- Yeah it doesn't mean
- Or with your friends.
- Yeah.
- Yeah that's true, we shouldn't see our other half
as the person who stops us from doing things
or gets us to do things.
- Walter's getting hungry.
- When did you first say I love you
and who said it first?
- Jessica said she was falling for me
- I did.
- Like after about three weeks?
- Yeah.
- And then we, oh my God Walter.
Trying to tell people about when we said I love you.
- Walter we're discussing our beautiful love story.
- And then I took Jessica away for like a
romantic getaway night in an old manor house called
Danesfield House which is lovely.
And then I told her that I loved her that night.
- Yeah.
- Whoa.
Last question.
- Okay.
- And it's for Claudia.
- Oh, me specifically?
- How did you know you liked girls
after thinking you were straight for such a long time?
- Oh. That's kind of a hard question.
I don't know I just kind of crept (up) on me out of nowhere.
- She turned around one day and realized she was spending
a lot of time watching the L Word.
And reading Sarah Waters novels.
- I don't even know I can't even remember
what made me watch the L Word.
Like none of my friends were watching it.
I must've heard about it from somewhere.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause I had to download it illegally.
Like stream it. So I had to search for it.
Through all those like things
Like Putlocker and stuff like that.
Do those things still exist
those illegal streaming things?
- I would assume so.
- Well anyways, the only way you could watch things online.
No, I tell a lie. The first thing was
it's very hard to remember but it was all just like
little things just trickled in.
- Yeah.
- Until eventually it was like torrents of water
coming in that I just
- Torrents of lesbianism.
- And I was just like I don't have enough buckets
to contain this anymore and was like fine
just gonna swim in it.
- My gayness is spilling over.
- Yeah.
No I was actually dating my ex-boyfriend at the time
but he was in Cambridge University and I was in London
so I only ever saw him like every two weeks
which is still pretty good.
But like, then other than that I was pretty much you know
my own person, do what I like, go out.
But I was very much like not interested in boys
because I was like oh no I have a boyfriend
he's just not here, you know?
- Yeah.
- So maybe that kind of, I have no idea.
But basically I read Sarah Waters Tipping the Velvet.
And again I don't know what made me buy that book.
No one else had recommended it to me or anything.
I just kind of randomly went to the lesbian and gay section
in the Waterstones and bought this book.
And read it and then was like, fell in love
with this whole storyline.
- Yeah, she's really into it.
- Yeah and I watched the BBC dramatized version of it.
Over and over and then I read all of the other
Sarah Waters novels and even I remember I was
I started listening to Brandi Carlile.
And I was like I just love her stuff and her stories.
And I was dating my boyfriend at the time
when I listened to Brandi Carlile and reading all of
Sarah Waters and I was telling him
how amazing all these things were, so.
- And he was like, okay.
Sure.
- Oh my God Walter.
And then yeah just like over then
when I was about 20, 21, that was then.
But then I didn't come out until I was 24 so then
that's when like the water kind of
other things kept coming.
- The Sarah Waters.
No pun intended, oh that's so funny.
Sarah Waters.
- I really cracked myself up.
All that female energy.
And Walter.
- Walter's just like, he's like my gayness at the door.
Let me out, let me out of the cupboard.
- What are you doing with a boyfriend?
- I guess it was subconscious just try
somehow to tell you.
- Yeah. There's the answer right there.
- Oh, okay. Let's go. That's it?
- Let's go and let your subconscious have his dinner.
- Let's go and let the poor little boy, all right.
- It's weird that your subconscious gayness is male.
- I know. Love you, I mean, no!
I love you! Bye-bye!
- No sure, I love you too!
Bye!
(Cheerful upbeat Christmas music)
- But it's also dependent on (laughs)
Oh my God.
I'm just gonna leave.
- I've been working hard today, okay?
No! It's not you (laughter)
It's just chronic fatigue.
(bouncy Christmas music)